臺大管理論叢 NTU Management Review VOL.29 NO.1

111 NTU Management Review Vol. 29 No. 1 Apr. 2019 The data set utilized in this study is primarily drawn from the 2009–2012 Survey on the Outward FDI of Taiwanese Manufacturers conducted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) of Taiwan. 3 This survey includes not only the firm characteristics, e.g., revenue, total employment, and R&D expenditure, but also the variables related to the overseas activities of firms, e.g., overseas R&D collaboration. More importantly, the information regarding the responding firms’ strategic motives of foreign entry and their comments on the institutional situations enable us to test our hypotheses. Total 2,423 company-year observations are valid for this study after removing those with missing data and no R&D activities. 3.2 Variables and Measurements The factors related to the foreign R&D partner selection of Taiwanese manufacturers are surveyed in the questionnaire, which include why firms enter foreign markets (Strategic Motive), where firms enter (Local Institutional Context), how firms intend to learn (Learning Strategy), and whom firms are inclined to partner with for the technological R&D (Partner Selection). Strategic motive . Following the extant literature, we proxy the construct of strategic motive with two dummy variables: the market expansion (ME) and the technology acquisition (TA). We code ME as1 if the firms enter foreign countries for potential business opportunities, otherwise as zero. We code TA as 1 if the firms enter the foreign countries in pursuit of advanced technologies and technical human resources, otherwise as zero. Learning strategy . We use two dummy variables of exploitation (EPOI) and exploration (EPOR) to proxy two types of learning strategy. We code EPOI as 1 if the firms undertake R&D activities in host countries for lowering production costs, improving efficiency, product quality or functions, or expanding local markets, otherwise as zero. We code EPOR as 1 if the firms undertake R&D activities for developing new technologies, products or services, or utilizing local R&D resources, otherwise as zero. 3 In order to understand the motive, business profile, and the difficulties confronted by overseas investments of Taiwanese manufacturers, MOEA conducts an investigation by sampling about 2,500 firms every year, and the successful response rate is about 76%.